Timothy Hallett Tracy, a 35-year-old U.S. filmmaker, has been detained by Venezuelan intelligence services, who are accusing him of fomenting violence and instability in Venezuela following the elections on April 14. AP News reported that Tracy had been detained at least twice before by SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence police, the last time being five days before the elections as he took video of a pro-government rally.
Nicolás Maduro, the current president of Venezuela, said that he had ordered Tracy's arrest.
"The gringo who financed the violent groups has been captured," Maduro said on state television, according to the Washington Post. "I gave the order that he be detained immediately and passed over to the attorney general's office."
In a news conference on Thursday, Interior Minister Miguel Rodríguez identified the detained man and said the government has evidence that Tracy was channeling money from non-profit organizations to the "extreme right" opposition to "take us to civil war...Because a civil war would lead to the intervention of a foreign power to bring order to the country." Rodríguez added that "from the way he acted, there is no doubt that he is from an intelligence agency."
Tracy was arrested on Wednesday evening as he prepared to catch a flight out of Caracas. He will be brought on Thursday to a court hearing, where he will charged under Venezuela's anti-terrorism laws. His father told the AP that his son had recently asked him for some airline miles so that he could return to the U.S. for his father's 80th birthday.
Friends and family said Tracy had been in Venezuela since the previous year and was working on a documentary about the country. The Georgetown University graduate previously worked as a story consultant on a documentary about competitive barbershop quartet singing, and produced a Discovery Channel program about terrorism and smuggling across the U.S.-Canada border as well as the History Channel series "Madhouse," about race car drivers in North Carolina.
A friend of Tracy's told the Washington Post, "Tim Tracy is not affiliated with any governmental intelligence agency -- is not even remotely associated. The whole thing is ridiculous. It's almost comical, the way he's being portrayed."
Maduro won the presidential elections by less than two percent of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council. The opposition says it has evidence of more than 3,200 irregularities taking place throughout the country. A full audit has been granted, but the nature of what that will be is not entirely clear. Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader, says that if the registration books are not opened in the process, the audit will be a farce.
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